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Automotive Grade 1 Qualification of Embedded SuperFlash® Memory

January 01, 2019 by Paul Shepard

Automotive applications are increasingly depending on MCUs with embedded flash memory to ensure the high performance and reliability required for safety-critical and infotainment applications. To extend the availability of these solutions, Microchip Technology Inc. subsidiary Silicon Storage Technology (SST) today announced that its high-speed embedded SuperFlash® technology is qualified to Automotive Electronics Council’s AEC-Q100 Grade 1 on United Microelectronics Corporation’s 55nm platform.

SST’s embedded SuperFlash technology offers low power, high reliability, superior data retention and endurance across broad markets. For example, in automotive applications, SuperFlash technology provides IC designers with a cost-effective, embedded flash solution that meets high speed and dependability requirements.

As electronic content in vehicles continues to rise, the technology’s fast access time, power efficiency and fast erase speeds are crucial for automotive applications. SuperFlash® technology is based on a proprietary split-gate flash memory cell (pictured above) which provides a cost effective and high performance programmable SoC solution.

“As part of the AEC-Q100 Grade 1 qualification on UMC’s 55nm platform, SST’s SuperFlash technology completed a very high bar in endurance testing, including 700,000 program/erase cycles and 20 years of data retention,” said Mark Reiten, vice president of SST. “The partnership with UMC will enable automotive customers who require low-power, high-endurance embedded flash to keep their production costs down by using the 55nm platform.”

“Since qualifying SST's SuperFlash technology on UMC’s 55nm in 2015, we have engaged with multiple customers for a variety of end market applications,” said Steven Liu, vice president of Corporate Marketing Division at UMC. “With this latest milestone to successfully achieve automotive-grade qualification, UMC customers can confidently utilize SST 55nm SuperFlash technology for their automotive IC designs manufactured in UMC’s fabs, which have all been IATF-16949 certified to meet stringent automotive quality production standards.”

Contact SST for more information on SST’s extensive custom library of off-the-shelf IP blocks optimized for automotive/secure/smartcard System-on-Chips (SoCs).